Book: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4

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In the following March Karaveloff for the third time became prime minister.
His efforts to improve the financial situation, which now became alarming,
proved abortive, and in January 1902 a Tzankovist cabinet was formed under
Daneff, who succeeded in obtaining a foreign loan. Russian influence now
became predominant, and in the autumn the grand-duke Nicholas, General
Ignatiev, and a great number of Russian officers were present at the
consecration of a Russian church and monastery in the Shipka pass. But the
appointment of Mgr. Firmilian, a Servian prelate, to the important see of
Uskub at the instance of Russia, the suspected designs of that power on the
ports of Varna and Burgas, and her unsympathetic attitude in regard to the
Macedonian Question, tended to diminish her popularity and that of the
government. A cabinet crisis was brought about in May 1903, by the efforts
of the Russian party to obtain control of the army, and the Stambolovists
returned to power under General Petroff. A violent recrudescence of the
Macedonian agitation took place in the autumn of 1902; at the suggestion of
Russia the leaders were imprisoned, but the movement nevertheless gained
force, and in August 1903 a revolt broke out in the vilayet of Monastir,
subsequently spreading to the districts of northern Macedonia and
Adrianople (see MACEDONIA). The barbarities committed by the Turks in
repressing the insurrection caused great exasperation in the principality;
the reserves were partially mobilized, and the country was brought to the
brink of war. In pursuance of the policy of Stamboloff, the Petroff
government endeavoured to inaugurate friendly relations with Turkey, and a
Turco-Bulgarian convention was signed (8th April 1904) which, however,
proved of little practical value.

The outrages committed by numerous Greek bands in Macedonia led to
reprisals on the Greek population in Bulgaria in the summer of 1906, and
the town of Anchialo was partially destroyed. On the 6th of November in
that year Petroff resigned, and Petkoff, the leader of the Stambolovist
party, formed a ministry. The prime minister, a statesman of undoubted
patriotism but of overbearing character, was assassinated on the 11th of
March 1907 by a youth who had been dismissed from a post in one of the
agricultural banks, and the cabinet was reconstituted under Gudeff, a
member of the same party.

_Declaration of Independence._--During the thirty years of its existence
the principality had made rapid and striking progress. Its inhabitants,
among whom a strong sense of nationality had grown up, were naturally
anxious to escape from the restrictions imposed by the treaty of Berlin.
That Servia should be an independent state, while Bulgaria, with its
greater economic and military resources, remained tributary to the Sultan,
was an anomaly which all classes resented; and although the Ottoman
suzerainty was little more than a constitutional fiction, and the tribute
imposed in 1878 was never paid, the Bulgarians were almost unanimous in
their desire to end a system which made their country the vassal of a
Moslem state notorious for its maladministration and corruption. This
desire was strengthened by the favourable reception accorded to Prince
Ferdinand when he visited Vienna in February 1908, and by the so-called
"Geshoff incident," _i.e._ the exclusion of M. Geshoff, the Bulgarian
agent, from a dinner given by Tewfik Pasha, the Ottoman minister for
foreign affairs, to the ministers of all the sovereign states represented
at Constantinople (12th of September 1908). This was interpreted as an
insult to the Bulgarian nation, and as the explanation offered by the grand
vizier was unsatisfactory, M. Geshoff was recalled to Sofia. At this time
the bloodless revolution in Turkey seemed likely to bring about a
fundamental change in the settled policy of Bulgaria. For many years past
Bulgarians had hoped that their own orderly and progressive government,
which had contrasted so strongly with the evils of Turkish rule, would
entitle them to consideration, and perhaps to an accession of territory,
when the time arrived for a definite settlement of the Macedonian Question.
Now, however, the reforms introduced or foreshadowed by the Young Turkish
party threatened to deprive Bulgaria of any pretext for future
intervention; there was nothing to be gained by further acquiescence in the
conditions laid down at Berlin. An opportunity for effective action
occurred within a fortnight of M. Geshoff's recall, when a strike broke out
on those sections of the Eastern Rumelian railways which were owned by
Turkey and leased to the Oriental Railways Company. The Bulgarians alleged
that during the strike Turkish troops were able to travel on the lines
which were closed to all other traffic, and that this fact constituted a
danger to their own autonomy. The government therefore seized the railway,
in defiance of European opinion, and in spite of the protests of the
suzerain power and the Oriental Railways Company. The bulk of the Turkish
army was then in Asia, and the new regime was not yet firmly established,
while the Bulgarian government were probably aware that Russia would not
intervene, and that Austria-Hungary intended to annex Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and thus incidentally to divert attention from their own
violation of the treaty of Berlin. On the 5th of October Prince Ferdinand
publicly proclaimed Bulgaria, united since the 6th of September 1885
(_i.e._ including Eastern Rumelia), an independent kingdom. This
declaration was read aloud by the king in the church of the Forty Martyrs
at Trnovo, the ancient capital of the Bulgarian tsars. The Porte
immediately protested to the powers, but agreed to accept an indemnity. In
February 1909 the Russian government proposed to advance to Bulgaria the
difference between the L4,800,000 claimed by Turkey and the L1,520,000
which Bulgaria undertook to pay. A preliminary Russo-Turkish protocol was
signed on the 16th of March, and in April, after the final agreement had
been concluded, the independence of Bulgaria was recognized by the powers.
Of the indemnity, L1,680,000 was paid on account of the Eastern Rumelian
railways; the allocation of this sum between Turkey and the Oriental
railways was submitted to arbitration. (See TURKEY: _History_.)

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

_Language._--The Bulgarian is at once the most ancient and the most modern
of the languages which constitute the Slavonic group. In its groundwork it
presents the nearest approach to the old ecclesiastical Slavonic, the
liturgical language common to all the Orthodox Slavs, but it has undergone
more important modifications than any of the sister dialects in the
simplification of its grammatical forms; and the analytical character of
its development may be compared with that of the neo-Latin and Germanic
languages. The introduction of the definite article, which appears in the
form of a suffix, and the almost total disappearance of the ancient
declensions, for which the use of [v.04 p.0785] prepositions has been
substituted, distinguish the Bulgarian from all the other members of the
Slavonic family. Notwithstanding these changes, which give the language an
essentially modern aspect, its close affinity with the ecclesiastical
Slavonic, the oldest written dialect, is regarded as established by several
eminent scholars, such as Safarik, Schleicher, Leskien and Brugman, and by
many Russian philologists. These authorities agree in describing the
liturgical language as "Old Bulgarian." A different view, however, is
maintained by Miklosich, Kopitar and some others, who regard it as "Old
Slovene." According to the more generally accepted theory, the dialect
spoken by the Bulgarian population in the neighbourhood of Salonica, the
birthplace of SS. Cyril and Methodius, was employed by the Slavonic
apostles in their translations from the Greek, which formed the model for
subsequent ecclesiastical literature. This view receives support from the
fact that the two nasal vowels of the Church-Slavonic (the greater and
lesser _us_), which have been modified in all the cognate languages except
Polish, retain their original pronunciation locally in the neighbourhood of
Salonica and Castoria; in modern literary Bulgarian the _rhinesmus_ has
disappeared, but the old nasal vowels preserve a peculiar pronunciation,
the greater _us_ changing to _u_, as in English "but," the lesser to _e_,
as in "bet," while in Servian, Russian and Slovene the greater _us_ becomes
_u_ or _o_, the lesser _e_ or _ya_. The remnants of the declensions still
existing in Bulgarian (mainly in pronominal and adverbial forms) show a
close analogy to those of the old ecclesiastical language.

The Slavonic apostles wrote in the 9th century (St Cyril died in 869, St
Methodius in 885), but the original manuscripts have not been preserved.
The oldest existing copies, which date from the 10th century, already
betray the influence of the contemporary vernacular speech, but as the
alterations introduced by the copyists are neither constant nor regular, it
is possible to reconstruct the original language with tolerable certainty.
The "Old Bulgarian," or archaic Slavonic, was an inflexional language of
the synthetic type, containing few foreign elements in its vocabulary. The
Christian terminology was, of course, mainly Greek; the Latin or German
words which occasionally occur were derived from Moravia and Pannonia,
where the two saints pursued their missionary labours. In course of time it
underwent considerable modifications, both phonetic and structural, in the
various Slavonic countries in which it became the liturgical language, and
the various MSS. are consequently classified as "Servian-Slavonic,"
"Croatian-Slavonic," "Russian-Slavonic," &c., according to the different
recensions. The "Russian-Slavonic" is the liturgical language now in
general use among the Orthodox Slavs of the Balkan Peninsula owing to the
great number of ecclesiastical books introduced from Russia in the 17th and
18th centuries; until comparatively recent times it was believed to be the
genuine language of the Slavonic apostles. Among the Bulgarians the spoken
language of the 9th century underwent important changes during the next
three hundred years. The influence of these changes gradually asserts
itself in the written language; in the period extending from the 12th to
the 15th century the writers still endeavoured to follow the archaic model,
but it is evident that the vernacular had already become widely different
from the speech of SS. Cyril and Methodius. The language of the MSS. of
this period is known as the "Middle Bulgarian"; it stands midway between
the old ecclesiastical Slavonic and the modern speech.

In the first half of the 16th century the characteristic features of the
modern language became apparent in the literary monuments. These features
undoubtedly displayed themselves at a much earlier period in the oral
speech; but the progress of their development has not yet been completely
investigated. Much light may be thrown on this subject by the examination
of many hitherto little-known manuscripts and by the scientific study of
the folk-songs. In addition to the employment of the article, the loss of
the noun-declensions, and the modification of the nasal vowels above
alluded to, the disappearance in pronunciation of the final vowels
_yer-golem_ and _yer-maluk_, the loss of the infinitive, and the increased
variety of the conjugations, distinguish the modern from the ancient
language. The suffix-article, which is derived from the demonstrative
pronoun, is a feature peculiar to the Bulgarian among Slavonic and to the
Rumanian among Latin languages. This and other points of resemblance
between these remotely related members of the Indo-European group are
shared by the Albanian, probably the representative of the old Illyrian
language, and have consequently been attributed to the influence of the
aboriginal speech of the Peninsula. A demonstrative suffix, however, is
sometimes found in Russian and Polish, and traces of the article in an
embryonic state occur in the "Old Bulgarian" MSS. of the 10th and 11th
centuries. In some Bulgarian dialects it assumes different forms according
to the proximity or remoteness of the object mentioned. Thus _zhena-ta_ is
"the woman"; _zhena-va_ or _zhena-sa_, "the woman close by"; _zhena-na_,
"the woman yonder." In the borderland between the Servian and Bulgarian
nationalities the local use of the article supplies the means of drawing an
ethnological frontier; it is nowhere more marked than in the immediate
neighbourhood of the Servian population, as, for instance, at Dibra and
Prilep. The modern Bulgarian has admitted many foreign elements. It
contains about 2000 Turkish and 1000 Greek words dispersed in the various
dialects; some Persian and Arabic words have entered through the Turkish
medium, and a few Rumanian and Albanian words are found. Most of these are
rejected by the purism of the literary language, which, however, has been
compelled to borrow the phraseology of modern civilization from the
Russian, French and other European languages. The dialects spoken in the
kingdom may be classed in two groups--the eastern and the western. The main
point of difference is the pronunciation of the letter _yedvoino_, which in
the eastern has frequently the sound of _ya_, in the western invariably
that of _e_ in "pet." The literary language began in the western dialect
under the twofold influence of Servian literature and the Church Slavonic.
In a short time, however, the eastern dialect prevailed, and the influence
of Russian literature became predominant. An anti-Russian reaction was
initiated by Borgoroff (1818-1892), and has been maintained by numerous
writers educated in the German and Austrian universities. Since the
foundation of the university of Sofia the literary language has taken a
middle course between the ultra-Russian models of the past generation and
the dialectic Bulgarian. Little uniformity, however, has yet been attained
in regard to diction, orthography or pronunciation.

The Bulgarians of pagan times are stated by the monk Khrabr, a contemporary
of Tsar Simeon, to have employed a peculiar writing, of which inscriptions
recently found near Kaspitchan may possibly be specimens. The earliest
manuscripts of the "Old Bulgarian" are written in one or other of the two
alphabets known as the glagolitic and Cyrillic (see SLAVS). The former was
used by Bulgarian writers concurrently with the Cyrillic down to the 12th
century. Among the orthodox Slavs the Cyrillic finally superseded the
glagolitic; as modified by Peter the Great it became the Russian alphabet,
which, with the revival of literature, was introduced into Servia and
Bulgaria. Some Russian letters which are superfluous in Bulgarian have been
abandoned by the native writers, and a few characters have been restored
from the ancient alphabet.

_Literature._--The ancient Bulgarian literature, originating in the works
of SS. Cyril and Methodius and their disciples, consisted for the most part
of theological works translated from the Greek. From the conversion of
Boris down to the Turkish conquest the religious character predominates,
and the influence of Byzantine literature is supreme. Translations of the
gospels and epistles, lives of the saints, collections of sermons, exegetic
religious works, translations of Greek chronicles, and miscellanies such as
the _Sbornik_ of St Sviatoslav, formed the staple of the national
literature. In the time of Tsar Simeon, himself an author, considerable
literary activity prevailed; among the more remarkable works of this period
was the _Shestodnev_, or Hexameron, of John the exarch, an account of the
creation. A little later the heresy of the Bogomils gave an impulse to
controversial writing. The principal champions of orthodoxy were St Kosmas
and the monk Athanas of Jerusalem; among the Bogomils the _Questions of St
Ivan Bogosloff_, a work containing a description of the beginning and the
end of the world, was held in high esteem. Contemporaneously with the
spread of this sect a number of apocryphal works, based on the Scripture
narrative, but embellished with Oriental legends of a highly imaginative
character, obtained great popularity. Together with these religious
writings works of fiction, also of Oriental origin, made their appearance,
such as the life of Alexander the Great, the story of Troy, the tales of
_Stephanit and Ichnilat_ and _Barlaam and Josaphat_, the latter founded on
the biography of Buddha. These were for the most part reproductions or
variations of the fantastical romances which circulated through Europe in
the middle ages, and many of them have left traces in the national legends
and folk-songs. In the 13th century, under the Asen dynasty, numerous
historical works or chronicles (_letopisi_) were composed. State records
appear to have existed, but none of them have been preserved. With the
Ottoman conquest literature disappeared; the manuscripts became the food of
moths and worms, or fell a prey to the fanaticism of the Phanariot clergy.
The library of the patriarchs of Trnovo was committed to the flames by the
Greek metropolitan Hilarion in 1825.

The monk Paisii (born about 1720) and Bishop Sofronii (1739-1815) have
already been mentioned as the precursors of the literary [v.04 p.0786]
revival. The _Istoria Slaveno-Bolgarska_ (1762) of Paisii, written in the
solitude of Mount Athos, was a work of little historical value, but its
influence upon the Bulgarian race was immense. An ardent patriot, Paisii
recalls the glories of the Bulgarian tsars and saints, rebukes his
fellow-countrymen for allowing themselves to be called Greeks, and
denounces the arbitrary proceedings of the Phanariot prelates. The _Life
and Sufferings of sinful Sofronii_ (1804) describes in simple and touching
language the condition of Bulgaria at the beginning of the 19th century.
Both works were written in a modified form of the church Slavonic. The
first printed work in the vernacular appears to have been the
_Kyriakodromion_, a translation of sermons, also by Sofronii, published in
1806. The Servian and Greek insurrections quickened the patriotic
sentiments of the Bulgarian refugees and merchants in Rumania, Bessarabia
and southern Russia, and Bucharest became the centre of their political and
literary activity. A modest _bukvar_, or primer, published at Kronstadt by
Berovitch in 1824, was the first product of the new movement. Translations
of the Gospels, school reading-books, short histories and various
elementary treatises now appeared. With the multiplication of books came
the movement for establishing Bulgarian schools, in which the monk Neophyt
Rilski (1793-1881) played a leading part. He was the author of the first
Bulgarian grammar (1835) and other educational works, and translated the
New Testament into the modern language. Among the writers of the literary
renaissance were George Rakovski (1818-1867), a fantastic writer of the
patriotic type, whose works did much to stimulate the national zeal, Liuben
Karaveloff (1837-1879), journalist and novelist, Christo Boteff
(1847-1876), lyric poet, whose ode on the death of his friend Haji Dimitr,
an insurgent leader, is one of the best in the language, and Petko
Slaveikoff (died 1895), whose poems, patriotic, satirical and erotic,
moulded the modern poetical language and exercised a great influence over
the people. Gavril Krstovitch, formerly governor-general of eastern
Rumelia, and Marin Drinoff, a Slavist of high repute, have written
historical works. Stamboloff, the statesman, was the author of
revolutionary and satirical ballads; his friend Zacharia Stoyanoff (d.
1889), who began life as a shepherd, has left some interesting memoirs. The
most distinguished Bulgarian man of letters is Ivan Vazoff (b. 1850), whose
epic and lyric poems and prose works form the best specimens of the modern
literary language. His novel _Pod Igoto_ (Under the Yoke) has been
translated into several European languages. The best dramatic work is
_Ivanko_, a historical play by Archbishop Clement, who also wrote some
novels. With the exception of Zlatarski's and Boncheff's geological
treatises and contributions by Georgieff, Petkoff, Tosheff and Urumoff to
Velnovski's _Flora Bulgarica_, no original works on natural science have as
yet been produced; a like dearth is apparent in the fields of philosophy,
criticism and fine art, but it must be remembered that the literature is
still in its infancy. The ancient folk-songs have been preserved in several
valuable collections; though inferior to the Servian in poetic merit, they
deserve scientific attention. Several periodicals and reviews have been
founded in modern times. Of these the most important are the
_Perioditchesko Spisanie_, issued since 1869 by the Bulgarian Literary
Society, and the _Sbornik_, a literary and scientific miscellany, formerly
edited by Dr Shishmanoff, latterly by the Literary Society, and published
by the government at irregular intervals.

AUTHORITIES.--C.J. Jirecek, _Das Furstenthum Bulgarien_ (Prague, 1891), and
_Cesty po Bulharsku_ (Travels in Bulgaria), (Prague, 1888), both works of
the first importance; Leon Lamouche, _La Bulgarie dans le passe et le
present_ (Paris, 1892); Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg, _Die
Volkswirthschaftliche Entwicklung Bulgarians_ (Leipzig, 1891); F. Kanitz,
_Donau-Bulgarien und der Balkan_ (Leipzig, 1882); A.G. Drander, _Evenements
politiques en Bulgarie_ (Paris, 1896); and _Le Prince Alexandre de
Battenberg_ (Paris, 1884); A. Strausz, _Die Bulgaren_ (Leipzig, 1898); A.
Tuma, _Die oestliche Balkanhalbinsel_ (Vienna, 1886); A. de Gubernatis, _La
Bulgarie et les Bulgares_ (Florence, 1899); E. Blech, _Consular Report on
Bulgaria in 1889_ (London, 1890); _La Bulgarie contemporaine_ (issued by
the Bulgarian Ministry of Commerce and Agriculture), (Brussels, 1905).
Geology: F. Toula, _Reisen und geologische Untersuchungen in Bulgarien_
(Vienna, 1890); J. Cvijic, "Die Tektonik der Balkanhalbinsel," in _C.R. IX.
Cong. geol. intern. de Vienne_, pp. 348-370, with map, 1904. History: C.J.
Jirecek, _Geschichte der Bulgaren_ (Prague, 1876); (a summary in _The
Balkans_, by William Miller, London, 1896); Sokolov, _Iz drevnei istorii
Bolgar_ (Petersburg, 1879); Uspenski, _Obrazovanie vtorago Bolgarskago
tsarstva_ (Odessa, 1879); _Acta Bulgariae ecclesiastica_, published by the
South Slavonic Academy (Agram, 1887). Language: F. Miklosich,
_Vergleichende Grammatik_ (Vienna, 1879); and _Geschichte d.
Lautbezeichnung im Bulgarischen_ (Vienna, 1883); A. Leskien, _Handbuch d.
altbulgarischen Sprache_ (with a glossary), (Wiemar, 1886); L. Miletich,
_Staroblgarska Gramatika_ (Sofia, 1896); _Das Ostbulgarische_ (Vienna,
1903); Labrov, _Obzor zvulkovikh i formalnikh osobenostei Bolgarskago
yesika_ (Moscow, 1893); W.R. Morfill, _A Short Grammar of the Bulgarian
Language_ (London, 1897); F. Vymazal, _Die Kunst die bulgarische Sprache
leicht und schnell zu erlernen_ (Vienna, 1888). Literature: L.A.H. Dozon,
_Chansons populaires bulgares inedites_ (with French translations), (Paris,
1875); A. Strausz, _Bulgarische Volksdichtungen_ (translations with a
preface and notes), (Vienna and Leipzig, 1895); Lydia Shishmanov, _Legendes
religieuses bulgares_ (Paris, 1896); Pypin and Spasovich, _History of the
Slavonic Literature_ (in Russian, St Petersburg, 1879), (French
translation, Paris, 1881); Vazov and Velitchkov, _Bulgarian Chrestomathy_
(Philippopolis, 1884); Teodorov, _Blgarska Literatura_ (Philippopolis,
1896); Collections of folk-songs, proverbs, &c., by the brothers Miladinov
(Agram, 1861), Bezsonov (Moscow, 1855), Kachanovskiy (Petersburg, 1882),
Shapkarev (Philippopolis, 1885), Iliev (Sofia, 1889), P. Slaveikov (Sofia,
1899). See also _The Shade of the Balkans_, by Pencho Slaveikov, H. Bernard
and E.J. Dillon (London, 1904).

(J. D. B.)

BULGARIA, EASTERN, formerly a powerful kingdom which existed from the 5th
to the 15th century on the middle Volga, in the present territory of the
provinces of Samara, Simbirsk, Saratov and N. Astrakhan, perhaps extending
also into Perm. The village Bolgari near Kanzan, surrounded by numerous
graves in which most interesting archaeological finds have been made,
occupies the site of one of the cities--perhaps the capital--of that
extinct kingdom. The history, _Tarikh Bulgar_, said to have been written in
the 12th century by an Arabian cadi of the city Bolgari, has not yet been
discovered; but the Arabian historians, Ibn Foslan, Ibn Haukal, Abul Hamid
Andalusi, Abu Abdallah Harnati, and several others, who had visited the
kingdom, beginning with the 10th century, have left descriptions of it. The
Bulgars of the Volga were of Turkish origin, but may have assimilated
Finnish and, later, Slavonian elements. In the 5th century they attacked
the Russians in the Black Sea prairies, and afterwards made raids upon the
Greeks. In 922, when they were converted to Islam, Ibn Foslan found them
not quite nomadic, and already having some permanent settlements and houses
in wood. Stone houses were built soon after that by Arabian architects. Ibn
Dasta found amongst them agriculture besides cattle breeding. Trade with
Persia and India, as also with the Khazars and the Russians, and
undoubtedly with Biarmia (Urals), was, however, their chief occupation,
their main riches being furs, leather, wool, nuts, wax and so on. After
their conversion to Islam they began building forts, several of which are
mentioned in Russian annals. Their chief town, Bolgari or Velikij Gorod
(Great Town) of the Russian annals, was often raided by the Russians. In
the 13th century it was conquered by the Mongols, and became for a time the
seat of the khans of the Golden Horde. In the second half of the 15th
century Bolgari became part of the Kazan kingdom, lost its commercial and
political importance, and was annexed to Russia after the fall of Kazan.

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